How Can This Be?

How can it be May already?  Wasn't it just November?  How can it be the end of the school year?  I'm sitting in my office, and the school is too quiet.  Most of my students have finished all of their work and are enjoying the afternoon off.  But the yearbook shows all the things we've done this year. 

It's too quiet.  There are supposed to be sounds of learning and fun happening.  I'm supposed to be hearing students giggling when they aren't supposed to be.  But it's quiet.  In just a two days, we will close school for the summer.  My first year as a principal will come to an end.  As I reflect on this school year, there are things that I would have done differently.  There are things that I believe I handled exactly right and would do it again.

I think of the students that have been a part of my first year.  There were challenging days with some of them, that's for sure.  However, I truly think there were more rewarding days than challenging ones.  I think of those students that were only here for a short period before their family moved away.  I pray that we were a positive influence on them while we had them.  I think of the students that won't be coming back next year.    My heart breaks for those students!  I worry about them moving on.  Have we given them enough?  Are they equipped to enter a different environment and maintain their testimony?  Only time will tell.

I think of my staff.  These dedicated teachers that give of themselves day after day.  Being stressed out, getting frustrated, perhaps even angry, yet, the next day, they are ready to do it again.  Our school secretary balancing the school schedule and my schedule and keeping me where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

I ponder on chapel this year.  Did the messages help the students?  Was I too hard?  Was I not hard enough?  Did I pray enough?  The answer to the first two, probably; to the third, probably not.

As I sit here, typing this, I find myself looking forward to August already.  The new students that we have enrolled, those yet to be enrolled.  Smiling faces, expectant looks, new shoes and pencils.  It'll be great.

But first, we have a program and a kindergarten graduation to do.  I should go work on my 2 hour and 45 minute sermon--I've got to give these students enough to last them over the summer.  :)